We're a little perplexed by these developments. Why would AMD increase the latency of its L2 cache, especially without increasing its size? Why isn't the die area of the 65nm Athlon 64 X2 even smaller compared to the 90nm version with the same transistor count? There are a number of possibilities, but I'll refrain from speculating for now, and we'll await some better answers from AMD.

Such decision is a win-win strategy. As Intel realized clock speeds could no longer solely differentiate the performance of different, instead microarchitecture plays an important role in nowadays race, the MHz race ended and PR now more a less become meaningless.

We just got official word from Intel that they are going to be releasing a new quad-core processor in early January. The Core 2 Quad Q6600 will run at 2.4 GHz with a 1066 MHz FSB and 8M of cache total. The TDP of the new CPU will be 105 watts and the default voltage is 1.325v.

Tech Report has gotten a pair of the new 65nm processors, a 4800+ and 5000+, and put them through the paces on performance and power consumption. Can these new cores help AMD get back in competition with Intel?

That said, AMD could make one considerable stride toward countering Intel's quad-core chips and salvaging its poorly received Quad FX platform by replacing the Athlon 64 FX-70-series processorsâ€”and their scorching 125W TDP ratingsâ€”with chips made on this 65nm process.

It looks like Newegg has received a shipment of AMD's new Athlon FX-74, FX-72 and FX-70 processors and is preparing to offer them for sale very soon. They are NOT available yet, but we'll be checking Newegg.com's site for you often and will update you if we find them.

For now, you'll ONLY be able to buy these CPUs in combination with the Asus L1N64-SLI motherboard; priced at $349 apparently. The CPUs will be priced at $999, $799 and $599 for pairs of the 74s, 72s and 70s, respectivel